The interview, which took place on the eve of the 2012 American presidential election, coincides with the publication of three major works by or about Hilary Putnam. It begins and ends with the topic of science, drawing attention to science's profound importance but also to its contemporary forms of distortion. It explores Putnam's current views on realism, with reference to conceptual relativity and "objectivity without objects". The nature of philosophy and its sometimes-dishonest relationship to scepticism is considered, especially in relation to the work of Stanley Cavell and Richard Rorty. Putnam acknowledges that he has learned much from Wittgenstein, but he laments Wittgenstein's apparent insensitivity to the value of, and spiritual depth in, Plato. He recognises Rorty's contribution to the revival of pragmatism, but he roundly criticises the version of it advanced by Rorty and by his student, Robert Brandom. It is classical pragmatism's achievement in overcoming the fact-value dichotomy that Putnam wishes particularly to emphasise. While acknowledging tensions in the work of Dewey, between the sensitive aesthetician and the social reformer, Putnam stresses Dewey's importance, alongside that of Martin Buber, in shaping his own political and religious views. In the course of the discussion further tensions are considered--between pragmatism and American transcendentalism, and between analytic and continental philosophy. The interview closes with reference to politics and to the perilous situation of the humanities today.